by S. A. Lusher
“How far do we have to be?” Greg asked.
“This is good enough!” Campbell replied.
Greg said a small prayer as he pulled out the detonator, then hit the button. There was little sound, but he could feel a solid wave of force at his back, threatening to pull him off the hull. He glanced behind him and uttered a small laugh of triumph. The strut was completely detached from the hull, nothing more than blackened, twisted metal now.
“We got it! Just two more!” he said.
They pressed on, taking potshots at the Drones that made for them. Within sixty seconds, they had reached the second strut.
“Your turn,” Campbell said, getting his explosives out.
Greg nodded, spun on his heel and began blasting away at the Drones nearest to them. He emptied his shotgun and fed more shells into it. As he cocked it, he heard a small sound overhead. Snapping his gaze up, Greg spied a trio of Drones climbing down towards him, almost like humanoid, half-metal insects.
“Shit,” he snapped, raising his gun.
He blasted the head clean off one and watched both the head and the body spiral away into space. Shifting the muzzle, he fired and blew the second in half. The third was too close. It grabbed the end of the shotgun with one hand and made for Greg's helmet with the other. He pulled back, let go of his shotgun and hastily brought his pistol into place. Shoving the business end into the face of the Drone, he squeezed the trigger four times in rapid succession. The Drone let go as it twitched and it, too, floated away.
“Done!” Campbell called.
They trudged across the surface of the ship once more. As soon as they were free, Greg hit the detonator again. A second wave of force threatened to blow both of them away, and this time Greg saw the entire structure of the array shudder above them. Just one more strut. They pressed on and Greg switched to his rifle, as his shotgun had been lost to the void. He and Campbell fired on the Drones as they hurried on.
“Here,” Greg said, passing his final bomb to Campbell.
The pair got to work, repeating their last two actions. Greg picked off the Drones as quickly as he could with three-round bursts. There were more of them, a lot more, dozens, at least. This was going to be a tough one. Even if they managed to blast the comms array into space, getting back into the ship would be a hell of a thing.
“Got it. Let's go,” Campbell called, already moving away.
Greg followed. “You don't need my grenades? I've got two.”
“No, mine and the bombs were enough.”
They kept going. Greg pulled the detonator out and prepared himself.
“Now!” Campbell snapped.
Greg started to depress the button, but something abruptly slammed into him from above. The detonator flew from his hand, sailing out of his grasp. Campbell made one grab for it, but failed.
“Shit!” Greg screamed as a Drone attached to his back.
For a second, awful hands made of pale flesh and dull metal covered his faceplate. Then, they fell away as Campbell spun and fired. He shrugged the thing off, shoving it away from him as it flailed. The Drone drifted away.
“Now what?” Greg snapped.
“I'll shoot the bombs,” Campbell replied.
Before Greg could call that into question, Campbell raised his rifle, aimed, and fired. A tremendous explosion ripped through the area. Greg noticed the entire structure lifting away from them when something slammed into him, again, this time with much more force. He grunted as he smashed into the hull...terror rippled through him as he felt his magnetic boots detach. He bounced off the hull and began to float away.
Chapter 14
–Dread–
For a moment, Greg was blinded by fear.
His senses betrayed him and he flailed wildly, grabbing out at nothing. Below him, he saw Campbell battling off a small army of Drones, and then his fellow survivor was gone from sight as Greg flipped end over end.
Above him, the comms array drifted silently away.
As he saw it, a plan flickered through his head and some of his senses returned to him. Despite the explosion that had torn him loose from the hull, he still wasn't moving fast enough to catch up with the array. He grabbed for his rifle, found it gone, tossed loose in all the chaos.
Hoping against hope, Greg reached for his pistol. It was still there. Relief swept through him, but was stifled by fear. He was going to have to take some risks. Unfortunately, this wasn't an Extra Vehicular Activity suit; otherwise it would have some small thrusters built in. This was just a trumped up mining suit.
Greg flipped around again, realizing he wouldn't have to bother with the array now that he had pistol. As his back faced the hull, he let off a shot, then another, and a third, picking up speed as the force of the gunshots pushed him back, away from space and the free-floating communications array. At least they'd gotten that part of the job done.
A few seconds later, he grunted as he hit the hull. Greg scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, reattaching his magnetic boots. There was movement ahead of him, and to his right. He raised his pistol, hesitated, glanced around.
Nothing to his left.
He made for an airlock bay a couple of dozen meters to the left.
“Campbell? Can you hear me?”
Nothing. Silence on the helmet-mounted speaker.
“Burne? Are you there?”
Still nothing. Greg felt his guts go cold, but kept pressing for the airlock. Even if he was suddenly alone up here on this plague ship of the cybernetically-enhanced, he would much rather be inside than outside.
Drones gave chase. A few took potshots at him, but blowing away the comms array seemed to have momentarily disrupted their abilities. He wondered if it had anything to do with the sudden loss of comms, but doubted it.
Greg reached the airlock. A bullet pinged off the ring of metal that encircled the airlock bay. He hauled himself in and hit the activation button, waiting for the exterior door to open. Spinning, Greg raised his pistol and put down two of the nearest Drones. They detached from the surface and spun away into dead space.
Turning back, Greg saw the door had opened. He got in and all but smashed the close button, eager to be inside. Even if inside was a twisted, dark, broken mess of blood and things that wanted to kill him. Or worse. The exterior doors closed and oxygen vented into the bay, filling it slowly. Greg took a moment to relax.
If Campbell and Burne were both dead, he'd have to get the part himself and find a way out. He'd never really learned how to fly, but sitting in the cockpit, staring at the instrumentation panels...it seemed to stir something in him. Maybe he knew how to fly, but it was tied to muscle memory. He might not be able to pull off amazing tricks, but he should at least be able to get himself back down to the moon in one piece.
The inner airlock door opened.
The locker room area beyond was empty. Greg moved out into it, then walked over to one of the benches and sat down heavily. It groaned under his weight, but held. He found it difficult to care. There was too much to do, and he'd done so much already. The full implications of the fact that he might be alone up here really seemed to hit home now that he wasn't directly in harm's way any longer.
Greg sat there for a long moment, getting his breath back. Old aches and hunger pangs began to creep up on him once more as the adrenaline subsided. He was thirsty, too. His head hurt. And God, but was he tired. Greg felt like he could sleep for days, weeks maybe. How was it even remotely fair that he should wake up with no memories and have to run through a non-stop nightmare? He knew he should be thankful he was alive, but...
His eyes fell on his right arm, encased in a suit, made of metal. At least he was becoming vaguely comfortable with it. It wasn't constantly on his mind now. Greg took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.
“Greg, can you hear me?” Burne's voice was suddenly in his ear.
Greg straightened up. “Yes. Where the hell have you been?”
“Busy. I need you to meet me on
the engineering deck. There's an infirmary in between a pair of storage rooms. Can you do it?”
Greg felt uncomfortable talking about specific locations over an open channel, even if Powell had promised them the channel would remain secure...for a while, at least. But he was so relieved to hear someone else's voice, he responded quickly.
“Yeah. I'll be there.”
“Good. I've got a plan. Tell you about it there.”
Burne cut the feed. Greg stood and a little bit of strength come back to him. He looked down at the pistol, still clutched in his hand. He'd need something a little more substantial if he was going to make it to engineering.
Greg left the locker room behind, pistol reloaded, firmly in hand. The part of the ship he was in was still dark and dead, not meant to sustain life. As he moved through the darkened interior of the Isis, it came to Greg that sustaining life among the stars was exquisitely difficult. Everything had to be considered.
Gravity. Oxygen. Temperature. Food. Water. Even small mishaps could lead to catastrophic tragedies. He knew on a basic level that humanity had gotten quite good at the job of it. He didn't know the specifics, but Greg knew that movement between the stars at any reasonable pace could only be done with faster-than-light travel.
He wondered about the specifics of that. Wondered about his species' history, about his own history. Greg knew, without a doubt, that one of the things he'd spend a while doing, should he make it out of here alive, was piecing together the life he had before his memory loss. He knew it was likely a boring life, perhaps one not worth remembering...but it would be his. Of course, the trick was not to let his current life be consumed by this.
Greg found an elevator and opened the doors with the manual release catch. He peered into the darkened shaft, first down, then up. The elevator was above him. Good. He spied a ladder along the side and hesitated for a moment. There was a narrow strip of metal ringing the interior of the shaft, meant to walk along, but his suit made him bulkier than he would have been otherwise. With the power dead, he'd need to use the ladder.
With a sigh, Greg realized he'd have to jump. If only the gravity was off, at least in this one, specific part of the ship. Positioning himself to the best of his ability, he holstered his pistol and then took a running leap at the ladder.
He grunted as he landed and grabbed the rungs. Not too bad, he decided, and then he descended as quickly as he could. Greg had a rough idea of the layout of the ship, as he'd studied the infopad on the way up. Not to mention that the Isis wasn't all that structurally different from the Anubis.
Minutes passed in dark silence. Greg passed rung after rung, occasionally glancing down or up, just to make sure he was watching his ass. He couldn't help but remember that bone saw-wielding, long-armed nightmare. It wasn't dead. At least, he didn't believe it was dead. He could easily envision it waiting for him at the bottom of this shaft. What would he do if it really was? Run, he supposed. Run very fast and far.
He was almost there when he heard a sound overhead. It was faint, but he heard it. Greg looked up. It took him a second, but he let out a small scream of terror as he realized the elevator had slipped its moorings and was presently coming straight down towards him. He didn't have long. Greg looked down.
It was maybe another ten feet to the floor of the engineering deck. He said a small prayer and jumped. The landing was rough and sent waves of pain shooting up his shins and into his knees, but the suit helped. Greg rushed over to the door and hit the manual release. The sound was louder, the elevator came closer.
The doors popped open a few inches. Greg shoved his fingers through and pulled in opposite directions, forcing the door open. He didn't bother to check and see if the way was clear as he dove through the opening when it was wide enough. He felt the lift scrape the bottom of his boots as it slammed into place.
Greg landed on his stomach and grunted. Then he sensed someone nearby and rolled over. Immediately, he found himself staring up at a pair of Drones, which were reaching down for him with metal hands.
Offering a new short scream, Greg rolled out of the way and tore his pistol free of his holster. He managed to draw a bead on one of them and blew the top of its skull away. The second reached for him, its fingers replaced with scalpels, its eyes flaring blue and then green in the darkness, like dying stars set against the backdrop of eternity.
Greg shifted his aim and fired off three rounds, destroying most of its face. He rolled out of the way as it toppled forward, becoming one more corpse among many. How many had died in this system in the past month?
Greg tried not to think about it. Too many. Far too many. He stood and looked around, finding himself alone once more. At least he was on the engineering deck now. Greg pulled out his infopad after making double-sure the room was void and closed off, then fired up the map. He spent a few moments investigating the layout of the deck and pinpointing exactly where it was Burne wanted him to go.
When he finally had it, he shut off the pad, pocketed it and set off once more. The corridor beyond the small antechamber he'd dove into was equally void, though he was glad to see at least that the lights were on. Even if they were dim, creating shifting nests of shadows along the corners of rooms and corridors.
Greg kept going. He considered whether or not to try and contact Burne, and then decided against it. No need to give Erebus any more information than he already likely had. Did Burne have the part? The cargo bay with the part wasn't on the engineering deck. In fact, it was several decks above it, so why was the man down here?
Greg turned another corner and located the infirmary, up ahead, the door closed, nestled in between a pair of storage rooms. He hurried over to the door and looked around once more, making sure he was truly alone.
He was.
Greg opened the door. The infirmary was bathed in darkness, the thin white light from the corridor doing little to remedy this situation. Greg hesitated in the doorway, playing his light across the interior of the infirmary.
“Burne?”
Several pairs of crimson-neon eyes suddenly lit in the darkness, and a quartet of Drones broke out of the shadows. Greg let out a small cry of shock and raised his pistol. He opened fire, his combat training forcing him to take it slow. He put down the first one, then the second. As he emptied his magazine taking down the third, he sensed someone behind him. Greg spun, ready for another assault from behind, but saw that it was Burne.
The man raised his rifle and put down the last of the Drones.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had to get you down here and I knew they'd overhear us. Whatever Powell did wore off or Erebus cracked it or whatever.”
“So why are we down here? Do you have the part?”
“Not yet. I found some more explosives and got to thinking. We're in a position to do some damage. I want to bomb the engines. I don't have enough to really set the thing to go, but I think it'll be enough to do some serious damage and keep them busy and off our asses for a while. The engine room is heavily guarded, I need your help,” Burne explained.
“Alright, fine. Let's get to it,” Greg replied with a small sigh.
“What happened to Campbell?”
As they set off, Greg explained what had gone on up top. Burne confirmed that he hadn't heard anything from Campbell so far. The pair moved silently through a series of smaller maintenance tunnels that seemed largely deserted. Greg wondered briefly why so much of the ship seemed deserted, then decided he'd just been lucky enough to stay away from the hives of activity, where no doubt dozens if not hundreds of Drones worked.
Of course, now he was walking directly into one such hive.
“Think I could have that rifle?” he asked.
“What happened to yours?” Burne replied irritably.
“Lost it, and the shotgun.”
Burne sighed but passed him his rifle, switching to his shotgun. Greg thanked him and made sure it was fully loaded. Finally, they came to the doorway that would lead them to the engine room itself
.
“If you've got any grenades, get them ready. We're going to toss all of them in there, and in the chaos, hurry back to the main engine equipment. I'll plant all the bombs I have, you'll cover me, then we'll run and I'll blow it. Then we'll go get the part, got it?” Burne asked.
“Got it,” Greg replied.
He pulled out the two grenades he'd managed to snag back on Onyx. Burne pulled his own pair out. He opened the door. The engine room was abuzz with activity, several dozen Drones walked around, attending to all manner of equipment and machinery. Both men primed and tossed both grenades in quick succession.
Four thunderclaps sounded.
Four blasts of fire and metal tore through the engine room.
“Go!” Burne snapped.
They set off, running into the smoke and death. Greg kept his rifle tight to his shoulder, ready for anything. He'd set it to single-shot and as they passed Drones that had survived the blasts through the smoke, he took them down with quick head shots. They managed to reach the critical equipment that ran the engines.
“Cover me.” Burne extracted the explosives he had secured.
Greg spun and dug in, preparing for a hard-fought battle. The Drones shook off the effects of the quartet of blasts and came for him. There were still a dozen and a half or so left. He picked his targets, putting them down with headshots.
At first, it went okay. He managed to take down a dozen of the things. Even this far along, Greg was glad to see that Erebus had not yet perfected the Drone. They were still relatively easy to take down.
Then, a new figure stepped into the engine room.
Something familiar.
The bone saw-wielding Drone.
“Shit...Burne, how long?”
“Half done, why?”
“We've got company. Worse than regular Drones.”
“Fuck, keep it off me.”
Greg took out the rest of the Drones as what he thought of as simply the Bone Saw made its way slowly, menacingly towards him. It had its arms out, and several drilling buzzes whirled out as it fired up its saws.
“Fuck,” Greg snapped.
